Lebanon and Syria will work together to secure their land borders, as well as to delineate both land and sea borders, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Saturday in Damascus.

The visit by Prime Minister Najib Mikati was the first official trip by the Lebanese leader to meet with the new government of Syria.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he will travel to Syria on Friday to encourage the country's transition following the ouster of President Bashar Assad by Islamist insurgents, and said Europe should review its sanctions on Damascus now that the political situation has changed.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday that he had called for a moratorium on EU sanctions on Syria for six months or one year, but that a final decision could only come from the entire bloc.

Italy should lead international efforts to lift sanctions on Syria after the Assad regime fell to Islamist-led rebels a month ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Premier Giorgia Meloni in a phonecall Thursday,

A key dam in northern Syria has become a flash point in the conflict between Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in the country, and reiterated that the Turkish military would act if it did not.

Syria's Intelligence Directorate foiled an attempt by ISIS to bomb the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in the capital Damascus, state news agency Sana reported on Saturday. It said members of an ISIS cell were arrested before they could carry out an attack on the shrine,

Syria's state news agency SANA said authorities had arrested "Islamic State" (IS) members accused of targeting the Sayeda Zainab shrine in Damascus.